…seed funding to be won
BY KWANELE TSABEDZE
MBABANE – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is calling for innovators to solve mental health issues of adolescents and young people.
Each of the two top emerging solutions will benefit from a seed fund investment of USD$15,000. Another $5,000 in kind investment readiness business support will be provided to each winning solution besides the top two winners.
The Mental Health and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (ASRHR) HackLab is hosted by theUNFPA in collaboration with Youth Connekt Africa (YCA), and implemented by AfriLabs. It will explore innovation as an approach to accelerating efforts towards achieving the three UNFPA Transformative Results (TR’s) and ensure protection and fulfillment of adolescents and young people’s rights.
The three TR’s are (a) ending preventable maternal deaths, (b) ending the unmet need for family planning, and (c) ending gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation.
Speaking about the Hacklab, UNFPA Communications Officer Zwelakhe Nsibande said that the opportunity is meant to give youth a platform to introduce their innovative ideas for youth challenges.
“What caused us to have the call for youth innovations is that when we look from 2020, there are a lot of challenges that the youth has been facing. These include teenage pregnancy, job losses, as well as violent experiences. With this HackLab, we are giving the youth the chance to voice out their solutions to the challenges which they face,” said Nsibande.
He added that the competition is open to all youth up to the age of 35 years who live in Eswatini.
The Innovators will also get acceleration support provided by Afrilabs, which will include business support services – exposure to investment opportunities, business coaching, customer acquisition, brand positioning and awareness, financial management, team building, product development and augmentation etc.
The HackLab will also identify intermediaries including accelerators within UNFPA Country Offices (COs), incubators, investors, marketers etc, who can support young innovators to thrive and become leaders of societal change. The HackLab will identify innovators and connect them with technical support through UNFPA COs to assist them with aligning with UNFPA’s mandate to develop their innovative solutions in addressing issues related to mental health and ASRHR. This will help to raise awareness of the bi-directional interlinkages between mental health and ASRHR and help mitigate the consequences of both negative mental health and ASRHR outcomes in adolescents and young people.
